In recent years, innovation has become an increasingly relevant topic within hospitals and healthcare providers. But there is an important difference between having innovation on the agenda and having an innovation area that operates in a structured, continuous, and strategy-driven way. Understanding this difference is the first step toward building something sustainable.
The decision to seek innovation advisory support rarely comes out of nowhere. It usually stems from a turning point: the institution already has initiatives in place, already recognizes innovation as a strategic priority, but realizes it lacks a model capable of bringing coherence, continuity, and scale to these initiatives.
Sometimes, the trigger is the difficulty of prioritization, with too many open fronts and little clarity about where to focus effort and resources. In other cases, it is the perception that projects fail to move beyond the pilot stage or that the innovation area has not yet secured the support needed from senior leadership to advance at the pace the topic requires.
The challenges along the way
Organizations building an innovation area within a healthcare institution often encounter a set of challenges that are common across the sector.
Legacy systems limit the ability to test and integrate new solutions, internal bureaucracy slows down decisions that innovation requires to be agile, and competition with day-to-day operational demands forces constant trade-offs. In most cases, innovation teams are small and frequently asked to take on responsibilities beyond their scope.
Another recurring challenge is the lack of an internal sponsor who clearly understands what it means to support innovation. Without this understanding, the area tends to operate in isolation, without the institutional backing needed to move forward with more complex or higher-impact initiatives.
The role of senior leadership and long-term vision
One of the most consistent lessons from organizations that have successfully structured healthcare innovation is that the involvement of senior leadership and the board is not optional. It is essential.
This goes beyond formally approving projects. It means understanding that innovation is a long-term value-generation strategy that requires human, financial, and infrastructure resources aligned with that ambition. At the same time, this strategy also needs to deliver some short-term results — not to justify its existence, but to build internal credibility and maintain engagement across departments over time.
Balancing short-term support with long-term vision is one of the most delicate aspects of building an innovation area, but also one of the factors that most determines whether it will consolidate successfully or remain indefinitely under development.
What needs to exist before projects
Before selecting startups or running pilots, an innovation area must have clarity around some fundamental questions: what is the institution’s ambition regarding innovation? What is the role of this area — what it is and what it is not? How should it position itself in the short, medium, and long term?
From these answers, it becomes possible to define the appropriate governance model, with clear decision-making processes, criteria, and timelines. It also allows the institution to size the team required to operationalize this ambition — because team size directly determines how many projects can be conducted simultaneously with quality.
When these elements are in place, innovation no longer depends on isolated initiatives and begins to follow a more defined logic: from problem diagnosis and solution validation to decision-making based on concrete results.
Supporting hospitals and public health departments in structuring this journey, Eretz.bio, one of the innovation arms of Einstein Hospital Israelita, works from diagnosis to implementation, connecting the ecosystem and guiding practical application. To understand how this model can apply to your institution’s reality, explore Eretz.bio’s initiatives and projects here.
